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DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS: NOVEMBER 13, 2018

Daily Current Affairs ( November 13, 2018) like many other sections is inevitable and this also helps to score in the Banking awareness , Static GK and Financial Awareness sections. Remember, Banking Awareness and Static Awareness Questions are asked from the General Awareness section. This will also help you to ride your preparations for the forthcoming exams.

NATIONAL

INS Rana of the Eastern Fleet based at Visakhapatnam under the Eastern Naval Command is on deployment to the South East Asia and arrived at the port of Surabaya to participate in the inaugural edition of Indian Navy – Indonesian Navy Bilateral Exercise ‘Samudra Shakti’ scheduled from 12 to 18 Nov 18.

The aim of the exercise is to strengthen bilateral relations, expand maritime co-operation, enhance interoperability and exchange best practices.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated an inland port in Varanasi on the Ganga River.

The multi-modal waterways terminal will allow the navigation of large vessels starting on the river between the holy city Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and and Haldia in West Bengal.

The Varanasi port will connect with the National Waterway-1 (Haldia-Varanasi stretch) is being developed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI). It will enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1500-2,000 tonnes.

The total estimated cost of the project is Rs. 5,369.18 crore, which will be shared between the Centre and the World Bank on a 50:50 ratio.

It entails construction of three multi-modal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia), two inter-modal terminals and five roll-on-roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs.

Power Minister inaugurates INSPIRE 2018 In New Delhi

Power Minister Shri R K Singh inaugurates INSPIRE 2018 and gives away awards to the winners of the #InnovateToINSPIRE challenge.

This is the second edition of INSPIRE and is being organised by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) and World Bank.

The three-day symposium will focus on enhancing grid management, e-Mobility, financial instruments and technologies for energy efficiency in India.

During INSPIRE 2018, EESL and GAIL, a wholly owned subsidiary of GAIL (India) Limited signed a MoU to develop natural gas based cogeneration and trigeneration projects in Commercial & Industrial Sectors in India.

Union Environment Minister launches Global Cooling PrizeThe Ministry of science and technology has instituted a new prize for innovative cooling technologies that could reduce the climate impact of Residential Air Conditioning (RAC) at least by five times.

Called Global Cooling Prize, the award carries a total prize money of $3 million and this would be given away over two years.

The winning technology is expected to prevent up to 100 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by 2050 and put the world on a pathway to mitigate up to 0.5 degree Celsius warming by the turn of the next century.

India and Morocco signed Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters

India and Morocco have signed an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.

The agreement will strengthen bilateral cooperation and enhance effectiveness and provide a broad legal framework for prevention, investigation and prosecution of crimes as well as in tracing, restraint and confiscation of funds meant to finance terrorist acts.

It was signed by Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and Morocco Minister of Justice, Mohamed Aujjar in New Delhi.

Morocco

Capital: Rabat

Currency: Moroccan dirham

INTERNATIONAL

Amnesty International has withdrawn a prestigious human rights award from Myanmar Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, accusing her of perpetuating human rights abuses by not speaking out about violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

The international human rights group named Suu Kyi as its 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award recipient when she was still under house arrest for her opposition to Myanmar’s oppressive military junta.

More than 7,00,000 members of the mostly stateless group fled across Myanmar’s western border into Bangladesh after the Myanmar military launched a crackdown in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks on the security forces.

Amnesty International

Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

Palau Becomes 1st Country In World To Ban Reef-Killing Sunscreen

Palau bans reef toxic sunscreen by 2020 in an attempt to protect its coral reefs after the president of the country signed a bill into law. The president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau Jr. signed The Responsible Tourism Education Act of 2018.

It is the first country to ban reef toxic sunscreen by 2020 in an attempt to protect its coral reefs after the president of the country signed a bill into law.

The main reason sunscreen can be so dangerous to reefs is because some of the chemicals that wash off into the water have a negative impact on coral reproduction, which has consequences for the entire underwater ecosystem.

Palau

Capital: Ngerulmud

Currency: United States Dollar

France unveils bronze statue commemorating role of Indian soldiers in World War I

A new statue commemorating the role of Indian soldiers in World War One was unveiled in France to mark Armistice Day when the war ended in 1918.

The seven-foot bronze statue in the town of Laventie commemorates over 4,700 soldiers and labourers from British India who lost their lives on the Western Front during World War I and have no known graves.

The site in Laventie was chosen after the remains of two soldiers were identified as belonging to the 39th Royal Garhwal Rifles and reburied with military honours last year.

SpiNNaker: World’s Largest Brain-Like Supercomputer Switched On For First Time

The world’s largest supercomputer designed to work in the same way as the human brain has been switched on for the first time.

The newly formed million-processor-core Spiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker) machine is capable of completing more than 200 million million actions per second, with each of its chips having 100 million transistors.

The SpiNNaker machine, designed and built in The University of Manchester in the UK, can model more biological neurons in real time than any other machine on the planet.

Biological neurons are basic brain cells present in the nervous system that communicate primarily by emitting ‘spikes’ of pure electro-chemical energy.

AWARDS AND HONOURS

Dr Debabhuson Borah Gets Munin Barkotoki Literary Award

The prestigious Munin Barkotoki Literary Award 2018 in Assam has been given to young writer-critic Dr Debabhuson Borah for his book on literary criticism titled ‘Nirbochon’.

The Munin Barkotoki Memorial Trust announced the annual Award instituted to encourage young and promising writers in Assamese.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000 along with a citation and a plaque.

The award was named after renowned writer, critic and journalist Munin Barkotoki.

APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGNATIONS

Binny Bansal Resigns As CEO of Flipkart Group

In 2016, Bansal became the CEO of Flipkart, where he worked on strategic development, direction and business management.

In 2017, he assumed the role of CEO of Flipkart Group and his previous position was handed to Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy will continue as the CEO of Flipkart, which will now include Myntra and Jabon. Ananth Narayanan will continue as the CEO of Myntra and Jabong and will report to Krishnamurthy.

RANKING

Iceland is the safest country to visit: World Risk Report

According to a new travel safety index, Iceland topped the charts with the lowest risk of a natural disaster as well as crime rates.

UAE which is home to one of the most popular holiday destinations, Dubai, was ranked second.

Singapore which stood in third place was also ranked highly across all categories. The risk of Zika virus was, however, marked moderate in the country. The fourth safest country was Spain, followed by Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, Jordan and Barbados.

On the other hand, South Africa came last owing to a high risk of crime, health and terrorism.

SPORTS

Lewis Hamilton Won Brazilian Grand PrixLewis Hamilton (Mercedes) won the Brazilian Grand Prix after Red Bull’s Max Verstappen lost the lead in a collision with backmarker Esteban Ocon (Force India).

The Red Bull player Max Verstappen came second and Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari secured the third-place.

OBITUARY

Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee passed away

The Comics legend Stan Lee has passed away. Stan Lee was often cited as an inspiration by writers and artists alike.

He helped create some of the most popular comic book heroes such as Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.

IMPORTANT DAYS

World Kindness Day – November 13

World Kindness Day is an international observance on 13 November.

It was introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, a coalition of nations’ kindness NGOs.

World Kindness Day is to highlight good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness which binds us.